You might have been wondering about the dearth of posts as of late. With my full time job, conference schedule and grant writing – the blog has been on the “back burner”. However, I continue to read research daily. Here is a blast of things that I think are interesting.

Chen et al. (2012) completed a RCT of persons undergoing intravitreal injections, with a measurement of the patient’s anxiety.  The treatment group listened to classical music (from Pandora Radio) before and during the procedure (5 – 15 minutes). There was a significant difference in anxiety reduction in the treatment group and a reported 73% of persons who requested music in future procedures. I do not see a mention of a music therapist in this project and it looks like music was randomly selected by the classical pandora radio station.

Chen, X., Seth, R.K., Rao, V.S., Huang, J.J., & Adelman, R.A. (2012). Effects of music therapy on intravitreal injections: A Randomized Clinical Trial. J Ocul Pharmacol Ther. PMID: 22506884

If you work in the hospital setting, you might check out this review of literature by Davis and Jones (2012)  on the use of music for ventilated patients, where 7 studies are reviewed.

Davis, T., & Jones, P. (2012). Music therapy: decreasing anxiety in the ventilated patient: a review of the literature. Dimens Crit Care Nurs., 31(3), 159-66. PMID: 22475701

Conklyn et al. (2012) published a pilot study on Modified MIT for non-fluent aphasia. This study included a RCT of 30 patients post stroke who completed a pre and post test of sections of the Western Aphasia Battery. Persons in the MMIT group showed significant differences in the posttest measures. To my knowledge, this is the first study to call the technique used in music therapy “modified” MIT.

Conklyn, D., Novak, E., Boissy, A., Bethoux, F., & Chemali, K. (2012). The Effects of Modified Melodic Intonation Therapy on Non-Fluent Aphasia-A Pilot Study. J Speech Lang Hear Res. PMID: 22411278

Kim et al. (2012) compared Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation to NDT/Bobath for gait in adults with cerebral palsy. Twenty-eight patients were randomly assigned to RAS or NDT treatment, three times a week for three weeks. RAS increased cadence, velocity, and stride length and improved measures of pelvis tilt and hip flexion. NDT showed significant improvements of improvements in rotations of the hip joint (whereas RAS aggravated this). This research is interesting since a certain treatment may be better based on the desired outcomes.

Kim, S.J., Kwak, E.E., Park, E.S., & Cho, S.R. (2012). Differential effects of rhythmic auditory stimulation and neurodevelopmental treatment/Bobath on gait patterns in adults with cerebral palsy: a randomized controlled trial. Clin Rehabil. PMID:    22308559 

Lee et al. (2012) looked at responses of a patient in “vegetative state” using passive music listening of some Mahler.  They saw increase of heart rate with music after the 14th day of the intervention. Although a really small study (meaning lack of evidence to generalize), there aren’t many studies in this area of treatment and further investigation would be interesting. This article wasn’t available in full, so I don’t know how the music was chosen – if there were preference considerations for the patient.

Lee, Y.C., Lei, C.Y., Shih, Y.S., Zhang, W.C., Wang, H.M., Tseng, C.L., Hou, M.C., Chiang, H.Y., & Huang, S.C. (2011). HRV response of vegetative state patient with music therapy. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc., 1701-4. PMID: 22254653

Hope you enjoy this quick research update!!